Electrical Utility companies often charge customers a premium based upon their peak power demand for any period during billing cycle, in addition to the charges based upon their consumption. These demand charges are in place by the utility to account for the customers whose peak load differs greatly from the nominal load. This is primarily true for Commercial and Industrial customers. The Electrical Utility must maintain reserve capacity to supply all customers' peak demand at any time. Since the duration of these periods of high demand may only account for a relatively small percentage of time the utility may be operating far above the level of actual demand and consuming more fuel than necessary. The discrepancy between the nominal demand and peak demand can be quantified by measuring the load factor. The load factor is determined by taking the average demand for a given period and dividing it by the maximum measured load maintained for a specified time (e.g., fifteen minutes) observed during that period, yielding a percentage. A low load factor is an indication that the customer's peak demand during the billing cycle far exceeded the nominal demand whereas a high load factor indicates that the customer's demand was relatively constant across the billing cycle. Other measures exist as well for determining demand charges.